Suchergebnisse

In recent years, the US has seen its public popularity ratings around the world plummet under the presidency of George W. Bush, and subsequently soar upon the election of Barack Obama. The issue of anti-Americanism has received considerable attention from policy-makers, pundits and scholars alike. It is perhaps surprising then that systematic empirical studies of its consequences are still few and far between. Drawing from a wealth of research data, interviews and surveys of social media, this book directly examines pro- and anti-American views and asks what we can learn about the nature and impact of world opinion. By treating anti-Americanism as a case study of public opinion at work, Professor Datta reveals how we can better understand the relationship between global citizens and their political leaders, and concludes that anti-Americanism does in fact substantially impact US security, as well as its economic and political interests

Given the hidden, criminal nature of contemporary slavery, empirically estimating the proportion of the population enslaved at the national and global level is a challenge. At the same time, little is understood about what happens to the lives of the survivors of slavery once they are free. I discuss some data collection methods from two nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) I have worked with that shed light on these issues. The first NGO, the Walk Free Foundation, estimates that there are about 30 million enslaved in the world today. The second NGO, Free the Slaves, employs a longitudinal analysis to chronicle the lives of survivors. The acquisition and dissemination of such information is crucial because policymakers and donors sometimes require hard data before committing time, political will, and resources to the cause.

Over the past several years, student demand for courses, research opportunities, and internships in the realm of human rights and modern-day slavery has reached a tipping point, for several reasons. First, social media have made contemporary slavery a familiar issue. MTV's Exit Campaign (http://mtvexit.org), for instance, has informed at least 20 million people about the subject since the campaign's launch in 2004. Second, Hollywood has taken notice. With films like 2009's Taken, starring Liam Neeson as a father who single-handedly (even if unrealistically) rescues his daughter from the clutches of sex traffickers in Europe, students know trafficking is a moral evil that should be fought. Third, policymakers have transcended partisan politics and embraced legislation to fight modern-day slavery. In February 2013, for instance, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously in support of an amendment to the Violence Against Women Act to help child victims of sex trafficking. President Obama gave a major speech on modern-day slavery in 2012 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/ endtrafficking). Accordingly, a growing number of incoming college freshmen not only want to major (or concentrate) in the study of human rights, but also want to spend part of their careers tackling human-rights abuses, including contemporary slavery. In the past two years, I have compiled a teaching and research portfolio on modern-day slavery using community-based learning. Here I highlight some lessons learned and suggest next steps to deepen this teaching and research agenda, particularly for institutions such as mine, a small liberal arts college in the American South. This is especially appropriate given the recent 150th anniversary of President Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

In recent years, the US has seen its public popularity ratings around the world plummet under the presidency of George W. Bush, and subsequently soar upon the election of Barack Obama. The issue of anti-Americanism has received considerable attention from policy-makers, pundits and scholars alike. It is perhaps surprising then that systematic empirical studies of its consequences are still few and far between. Drawing from a wealth of research data, interviews and surveys of social media, this book directly examines pro- and anti-American views and asks what we can learn about the nature and impact of world opinion. By treating anti-Americanism as a case study of public opinion at work, Professor Datta reveals how we can better understand the relationship between global citizens and their political leaders, and concludes that anti-Americanism does in fact substantially impact US security, as well as its economic and political interests. ; https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1165/thumbnail.jpg

The sex trade grabs headlines, but modern-day slavery takes many forms across the globe, spreading like a cancer in the 21st century. Scholars estimate that there are as many as 27 million slaves today; the majority are not in forced prostitution, but instead in other heinous forms of exploitation (though rape and/or other forms of torture are often tools of coercion). Slavery permeates northern India, where children, to help pay off their family's exorbitantly high debts to corrupt local businessmen, hunch over in the dark for hours at a stretch as they weave carpets on looms until their small, delicate fingers bleed. Slavery is embedded in Nepal, where children and families in debt bondage spend years making bricks by hand, never making enough money to pay off their debts. Slavery is also rooted in Brazil, where poor farmers are lured to remote forests and forced to work m hot kilns to produce charcoal for the production of pig iron, which goes into the steel of the cars we drive and the appliances in our kitchens. Slavery is found in West Africa, where the cocoa industry obtains about half of Its world crop, in part from child labor, for the chocolate we enjoy and the cosmetics we use. Contemporary slavery touches us all.

Chief among US national security concerns is the North Korean nuclear threat. Led by its reclusive, enigmatic leader, Kim Jong Il, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) is one of the last bastions of communism, representing a strategic and ideological challenge for the United States in the post-9/11 era. So great is the perceived threat of the DPRK, that in his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush proclaimed, "States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger." Moreover, President Bush argued it is in within the rights of the United States to strike first against such threats, lest the nation be caught off-guard again and suffer the harrowing consequences of another September 11. Although North Korea has yet to test a nuclear weapon, most security experts agree Pyongyang has at least enough fissile material and the technical expertise to construct a handful of crude nuclear bombs. Moreover, using its long-range, intercontinental Taepodong-2 missile, the DPRK could launch an attack against South Korea, Japan, or even the United States (e.g., Hawaii, Alaska, and San Francisco). Thus, with one well-placed strike, North Korea could devastate a major American city. Given the isolated and mysterious nature of Kim Jong Il, and the probability that the DPRK has nuclear weapons, two key questions arise for debate: (1) How can the United States best understand the behavior and preferences of the DPRK? (2) What policy options should Washington consider in dealing with the North Korean nuclear threat?

Since the passage of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act and the United Nations Palermo Protocols of 2000, there has been an increased focus on the magnitude and complexity of modern day slavery. Yet, surprisingly, little empirical work exists. A comprehensive review of the literature by Elżbieta Gożdziak and Micah Bump in 2008 found that quantitative methodologies were noticeably scarce and that the dominant anti-trafficking discourse was not evidence based. One reason for this scarcity has been the difficulty in obtaining reliable representative data. In this paper, we utilize a novel measure of contemporary slavery in Europe that illustrates one way to fill this gap. Using this measure as a dependent variable, we test one of the first predictive models of slavery. Employing multivariate regression analysis, we find that several predictors—state stability risk, freedom of speech, access to financial services, geography, and age—are significantly predictive of cross-national variation in slavery across Europe. We conclude by outlining a research agenda to develop a better empirical understanding of modern day slavery. This is essential for the development of more effective government policies and responses, with an eye toward the eventual significant reduction or eradication of slavery.

Since the passage of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act and the United Nations Palermo Protocols of 2000, there has been an increased focus on the magnitude and complexity of modern day slavery. Yet, surprisingly, little empirical work exists. A comprehensive review of the literature by Elzbieta Gozdziak and Micah Bump in 2008 found that quantitative methodologies were noticeably scarce and that the dominant anti-trafficking discourse was not evidence based. One reason for this scarcity has been the difficulty in obtaining reliable representative data. In this paper, we utilize a novel measure of contemporary slavery in Europe that illustrates one way to fill this gap. Using this measure as a dependent variable, we test one of the first predictive models of slavery. Employing multivariate regression analysis, we find that several predictors—state stability risk, freedom of speech, access to financial services, geography, and age—are significantly predictive of cross-national variation in slavery across Europe. We conclude by outlining a research agenda to develop a better empirical understanding of modern day slavery. This is essential for the development of more effective government policies and responses, with an eye toward the eventual significant reduction or eradication of slavery.

The estimation of the 'dark figure' for any crime (the number of actual instances of a specific crime committed minus the reported cases of that crime within a population) has primarily rested on the ability to conduct random sample crime surveys. Such surveys are based on the assumption that victims experience crimes that are discrete, time-bound, and of relatively short duration. The crime of enslavement, however, presents a special challenge to estimation because it is of indeterminate duration. This challenge is compounded by the fact that victims of slavery are also often isolated by the stigma linked to sexual assault, or a sense of shame over their enslavement. Using a unique dataset, based in part on the random sample surveys ofJohn Pennington et al. (2009); and extended through a process of extrapolation, this paper estimates the numbers of victims of slavery and human trafficking for thirty-seven countries of Europe. These estimated numbers of slavery victims are then compared with reported cases of slavery and trafficking for the same countries. (Human Rights Quarterly)